Vinegar and The Mother

When I was 4 years old I noticed that my grandpa drank a shot of vinegar every day and I decided I wanted to do that too and that is how my love of vinegar began. I would pour it on salad (no oil needed) and drink it out of the bottom. I would put it on spaghetti or chicken. I swear it is the reason that my mom's cole slaw is the best around - because it is heavy on the vinegar. I can still drink it straight with a smile. I love vinegar. Kind of... What I mean is... I did enjoy vinegar until today when Jason ruined it for me. He innocently mentioned at dinner "Do you know how vinegar is made? It's made from alcohol! Malt vinegar is made from beer! I'm going to pull some beer aside in my next batch and make some vinegar!" I thought, great!! Use a bottle of merlot from our stash and make some red wine vinegar too!! Excellent! Home made vinegar!!! So while I watched The Biggest Loser, Jason watched video's on You Tube on how to make vinegar at home. And then... he shared some interesting things with me. Vinegar is made from bacteria. One guy said he just spit into his beer and set it aside for a few months. Gross. According to the all-knowing internet, the most legitimate way to make malt vinegar is to put some beer and a banana peel in a jar and let it sit and attract flies. The bugs and flies come and get into the beer and act as the source of bacteria. After a few weeks to a few months you then separate out the bug parts, the nasty banana peel and this goopy thing that looks like a big wad of snot that is called "the mother." And you have vinegar. AND you can take "the mother" and put it in another jar of beer and the mother will continue to make vinegar because it is never-ending with it's power to turn beer into malt vinegar. And then, when I was just on the brink of not being able to ever drink vinegar again, he tipped the scales by showing me an entire page of images of different "mothers." It's enough to make a strong stomach weak. Google it if you dare. And now I'm sitting here crying a little thinking about how difficult it is going to be to drink vinegar again. And how sad it is that the crazy-gross booger-wad is called "the mother." But maybe that's what being a mother is - a totally crazy thing that changes life in a magical way that you never even dreamed possible.

Reality From The Road

I just spent 5 days driving from San Diego to St Louis and here are a few things I've learned from the experience:

1. Winds can be so bad that a semi truck can literally be bent in two by it in Arizona.

2. Storm chasers are real!!! I saw one - a very interesting vehicle looking like a home-made tank headed north in Kansas!

3. Men wear overalls in other parts of the country. I saw a lot of them. On men that were not wearing them for style or fashion points.

4. It is acceptable in Oklahoma to drive with a cigarette hanging from your mouth and a roll of toilet paper in your hand.

5. Dirt and Trucks go hand in hand. I saw so many red-dirk covered trucks out of Texas and Oklahoma it was insane. Not just a little dust, mind you, but full on mud and dirt covered in chunks all over the truck.

6. Miss America 1981 was born in Elk City, Oklahoma. It's true.

7. Kansas is "The Wheat State" and 1 Kansas farmer feeds 129 people.

8. Those California Cheese ads with the cows out grazing in the fields that are just soooo happy they're in California now - they are a big fat lie. The dairy farms in California (ahem, Land-o-Lakes in Hemet I'm talking to you) are big squares of dirt with a million cows per square inch. It's revolting. On the other hand... Angus beef in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas - huge spans of grassy fields dotted with cows here and there. Now THOSE are happy cows.

9. Phoenix has radar guns with cameras attached all over their freeways. So... either don't speed or wear a hat and glasses and pull the shade down.

10. Texas has some seriously fancy rest areas. You could practically live at one.

11. Toilet seat covers in public bathrooms - not something you find in every state! Gross, I know. So it is important to master the hover technique.

12. The most obnoxious baseball fan at a game will always sit right behind you screaming in a way that you think may damage you permanently. True in San Diego. True in Phoenix. True in Kansas City. I would like to find out if it is true in every single baseball stadium.

13. "Cracker Barrel" is code for "lots of butter."

14. Joe Mauer is huge. Ginormous. Billy Butler is not a small guy - and Joe next to him made him look like a little kid.

15. We are being ripped off in California for gas. $3.10 here is $2.62 in other parts of the country.

16. Speaking of country... if you like country music (and you know I do)... you are in luck driving cross-country! Most of the time there was a great country radio station available (or 5 or 6) even in the middle of nowhere! If you like other music... well... you may not be so lucky.

17. Garth Brooks is popular even though he has been retired... what... 10 years? He has a road named after him in Oklahoma. And a freeway exit. And he sings from the Jumbo Screen at the KC Royals games - "Friends In Low Places" a song that was played as the last song at my Jr. Prom. So... a long time ago.

18. Rudy's BBQ - get the brisket. Eat there whenever you see one. OH, and Braum's ice cream - get the black walnut. Eat there whenever you see one. Enough said.

19. New Mexico has a lot of trains. I saw 7 in one day. None made it into a photograph. Ha ha hahahah.... I'm so funny.

20. The Missouri River is wide... and kind of dirty looking.

Lamb Butt

So I was shopping in the grocery store the other day. VONS - a regular store, not some funky-crazy-specialty store. Minding my business, in the dairy section, looking for a little "you can't believe it's not butter" butter, when I saw something shocking.

So shocking that I picked it up to look closer.

So shocking that I started laughing hysterically in the middle of the store.

So shocking that I ripped open my purse and yanked out my camera and took a picture.

What could be so shocking you ask?

Butter...

sculptures...

that's right.... SCULPTURES...

in the shape of a lamb!!!!! A LAMB!

Seriously. What are you going to do with this? Put it on the table for Easter? A little kid would cry over this when you hack off a little buttery lamb butt to put on your roll. Or worse, when you decapitate it to butter-up your mashed potatoes. Lamb shaped butter. Who thinks of these things? They're creepy, these lambed-shaped butter sculptures.

They are a baaaa-d thing.

Interesting Food Tips

From my kitchen to yours...

1. If you get some lite cool whip and at the stage where it is halfway between frozen and defrosted, you take a spoon and stir it up like crazy... it becomes something like marshmallow fluff. AND it will stay that way as long as you refrigerate it, but still at low low calories.

2. Unlike beef jerky, turkey jerky stays soft for a long time, even after you open it. And cats think they want to try it, but they really don't... they just want to get really up close to you and sniff it while you eat it.

3. When you're starving, even the frozen vegies in your freezer in the "steam itself" bag look tasty. Ok, that's a lie. They still look unappealing. You should always try to have something tasty in your freezer for those "emergency" hunger strikes when you're too lazy to go to the grocery store. I recommend Lean Pockets Pepperoni Pizza. Seriously.

4. Suzy Q's can go stale before the date marked on their package. It's a crime.

5. The large bag of pancake mix at Costco is a lot larger than it looks. Unless you have 10 kids or plan to eat pancakes every day, it'll expire before you can use it all.

6. Vegie Chips. Air puffed into a vegie paste to make it look like a potato chip... who knew they could be so good?

7. Crock pot. Frozen Meatballs. Grape Jelly. Catsup. Turn it on, walk away, come back to deliciousness.

8. If you serve alcohol before you serve dinner, people will be more likely to love your dinner.

9. Bananas should only be considered mini-fruit. They don't have juice. If you feel like a fruit, go for an orange or something juicy - you'll be glad you did. But use one of those peelers on the orange because the oil from the rind can get into your eye and hurt like crazy.

10. Do not microwave fish to reheat it. Take 5 minutes to heat it up in a pan instead - you'll be glad you did, and so will all of your neighbors when they don't have to smell the microwaved fish nastiness coming out your windows and from your clothes.